In recent years, the residual nature of a fluorinated organic compounds, which have been used as surfactants or surface treatment agents, in the environment has become a problem. It is reported that fluorosulfonic acids having mutagenic properties accumulate in bodies of animals including fishes, birds and humans, and there are growing concerns about their impacts on the ecosystem. With regard to fluorocarboxylic acids, their accumulating property in mammals was confirmed, and reduction of residual fluorocarboxylic acids in fluororesin articles has been promoted.
Such fluorinated organic compounds are formed from carbon-fluorine bonds having a large bond energy, so that they have high stability and they are hardly decomposable, and a high temperature of at least about 1,000° C. is required to decompose them by combustion. As decomposition methods other than combustion, photochemical decomposition (for example, Patent Documents 1 to 4) and hydrothermal decomposition (Patent Document 5) have been proposed. However, these methods require special conditions or complicated process steps, and therefore development of a more simple decomposition method has been desired.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2002-327089
Patent Document 2: JP-A-2003-40805
Patent Document 3: JP-A-2005-154277
Patent Document 4: JP-A-2005-225785
Patent Document 5: JP-A-2006-306736